seoprocourse

Welcome!

Welcome to the SEOPro course. My name is Ed Micah – I am a professional search engine

optimizer (SEO) and have been involved in the industry for over 5 years. As long as I have been

involved I have loved educating people about internet marketing – SEO in particular.



This free course is developed as an introduction to SEO and will hopefully get you started on a

successful journey in search marketing. I look forward to teaching you the basics of SEO so that

you can benefit from having your website featured at the top of Google and the other major

search engines.



Please feel free to share this course (web‐based or PDF) with anyone who may be interested.

You’re welcome to distribute it as you wish, as long as you do not edit or manipulate the

content in any way.



Chapter 1: Before we get started

Please register on SEOMoz (It’s free for one month, which is all you need) and enter your site’s

details. This is critical to analyzing your website and we will use this data in the upcoming

chapters. SEOMoz is my favorite SEO analysis tool and offers the best insights into SEO. Rand

Fishkin and his team are the leaders in SEO research and white-hat optimization.



To register a free SEOMoz account, please click here









Above: The SEOMoz Registration Screen - Please register before going any further.





Once That’s Done



SEOMoz will then start crawling your current website, as well as your competitors and should

be done within a day or two. Just let it run – it’s a fantastic tool. Keep in mind that apart from

these courses, you are welcome to email me at any time with questions you might have – I’m

always willing to help! Before we get started on our first chapter though, I just want to take a

step back and clear up any uncertainties about search engine optimization (SEO) in general.

Now that that’s out the way, let’s get started in the wonderful world of SEO…









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What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?



SEO is the active practice of optimizing a web site by improving internal and external aspects in

order to increase the traffic the site receives from search engines. Firms that practice SEO can

vary; some have a highly specialized focus, while others take broader and general approach.

Optimizing a web site for search engines can require looking at so many unique elements that

many practitioners of SEO (SEOs) consider themselves to be in the broad field of website

optimization (since so many of those elements intertwine).



This guide is designed to describe all areas of SEO – from discovery of the terms and phrases

that will generate traffic, to making a site search engine friendly, to building the links and

marketing the unique value of the site/organization’s offerings. Don’t worry; if you are

confused about this stuff, you are not alone.



Why do you company/organization/website need SEO?



The majority of web traffic is driven by the major commercial search engines – Google, Bing,

& Yahoo. If your site cannot be found by search engines or your content cannot be put into

their databases, you are missing out on the incredible opportunities available to websites

provided via search – people who wanted visit your website and acknowledge for what you

have on your site. Whether your site provides content, services, products, or information,

search engines are a primary method of navigation for almost all Internet users.



Search queries, the words that users type into the search box which contain terms and phrases

best suited to your site, carry extraordinary value. Experience has shown that search engine

traffic can make (or break) an organization’s success. Targeted visitors to a website can provide

publicity, revenue, and exposure like no other. Remember – investing in SEO, whether through

time or finances, it can have an exceptional rate of return.



Why can’t the search engine find out my site without the help of SEO?



Search engines are always working towards improving their technology to crawl the web more

deeply and return increasingly relevant results to users. However, there is and will always be a

limit to how search engines can operate. Whereas, the right moves can net you thousands of

visitors and attention; the wrong moves can hide or bury your site deep in the search results

where visibility is minimal. In additional to making content available to search engines, SEO can

also help boost ranking so that content that has been found will be placed where searchers will

more readily see it. The online environment is becoming increasingly competitive, and those

companies who perform SEO will have a decided advantage in visitors and customers.



Search Engine 101



Let’s look at search engines – the primary task of any search engine (be it Google, Yahoo or

BING) is to provide the searcher (your potential customer) with the most relevant and popular

results to his or search. The search engines all use different types of algorithms to assess which

websites “deserve” to be ranked highly and these algorithms are constantly changing and

developing so as to provide the user with the best possible results for their query. This, in short,

is the business of the search engines.









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Above: The Big Three Search Engines - Google, Bing & Yahoo



Search engine optimization is therefore the process of optimizing your website to rank well in

the search engines for the relevant search criteria. SEO is not the be all and end all of internet

marketing, and cannot be relied upon solely for the marketing success of any business or

website. SEO is however an incredibly powerful tool for driving free qualified prospects





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(visitors) to your website and/or business and the long-term benefits of SEO far outweigh the

initial time investment. SEO forms the foundation of any kind of internet success.



The process of SEO can be absolutely free if you do everything yourself, and there are of

course paid options available in terms of SEO tools and software, as well as turnkey SEO

services provided by SEO companies. I do however suggest that you commit to learning the

real deal of SEO in this course so that you know what to expect either way and can avoid any

“dodgy” SEO providers should you decide to go the paid route (as there are many of these

around). As with any technical topic, there will be those who take advantage of other people’s

ignorance – don’t get caught out – learn them so that you can make an informed decision!



Chapter 2: Keyword Research

Keyword research forms the groundwork of all SEO endeavors and unfortunately, is very often

overlooked by those wanting to get on to the more “exciting” stuff. This is one of the biggest

mistakes anyone can make in their SEO efforts – don’t underestimate the importance of

keyword research. A lack of keyword research can make your job tenfold more difficult, if not

impossible. Do the research and you are guaranteed to reap dividends down the line.



So how do we get started in keyword research?



To start your keyword research process, you need a keyword tool. A keyword tool provides

you with rough estimates of how many searches are being made every month (worldwide, or

for a specific country) for certain keywords. Most people take a guess at these figures and then

find that either:



1. No-one is searching for their chosen keywords (often because its industry jargon) or

2. The keywords that they have chosen are incredibly competitive, and therefore not

economically viable to optimize for



I personally recommend using Google’s free keyword tool, as it is simple and easy to use:



https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal









Above: The Google Adwords Keyword Tool

Note: There are also more sophisticated tools available, such as Niche Finder but these are

paid for – (worth it if you are serious about your SEO).





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Once you’re on the Google Keyword Tool page, type in as many keywords as you can think of

that are relevant to your business’s offering. For example, if your company sells stationery you

might type in:



 Stationery

 Stationery New York (or wherever you’re based)

 Stationery supplies

 Cheap Stationery



And so on… You don’t need to put in a lot of keywords (in fact, you can just get away with one

broad one). You then click the “Search” button and it will return with a few pages of similar

and related keywords and phrases, as well as their respective statistics. This is a goldmine of

information at your fingertips, as you can realistically measure the demand on certain

keywords both locally and internationally. You can also notice the trends for each keyword

over a period of time. From this example, we can see that more than 360,000 people are

searching for the term “stationery” in the US, every month (under “Local Monthly Searches”).



The next step is to sort the list by “Local Monthly Searches” and start picking some keywords

that are relevant to your line of work, and also have a fair amount of local searches every

month. I would suggest picking about 20 keywords to start with. Write down your list of

keywords or type them into excel. You can also export your keyword results directly from the

keyword tool – play around!



Tip: These search figures are based on “broad matches”. This means that they include searches

where other words were combined. To get the most accurate figure, I suggest using the [exact]

results. To do this, simply tick the *exact+ box under “Match Types” (left hand side bar).



The next step is to assess how competitive each keyword is, as this will influence how difficult

it will be to rank well in Google for that keyword. How we do this is as follows:

1. Open the SEOMoz Keyword Difficulty Tool (If you haven’t yet registered SEOMoz, click

here to register – it’s free for 30 days, which is all you need)

2. Enter your refined keywords or keyword phrases (maximum of 5 at a time) into the

keyword box

3. Select your target engine (.com for USA, .co.uk for UK, etc)

4. Click the “Run Report” button









Above: The Keyword Difficulty Tool



You will then receive a report with a breakdown of the difficulty of each keyword you’ve

entered. This difficulty score reflect how competitive each keyword is to rank on Google (in

that region, US, UK, etc.) Enter the difficulty score of each keyword into an Excel spreadsheet





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and repeat until you have the score for all keywords on your list. What you’re looking for is the

best search volume: keyword difficulty ratio -ie: high search volume, low difficulty.



Refine your keyword list using this tactic until you have 3 – 5 good targeted, low competition

keywords, which have fair search volume every month. You may find that you need to go back

to the keyword tool to get more ideas.



Tip: if you are selling a very unique product, try using the product name as a keyword and see

what comes up. Sometimes you can find really easy to access niches this way, which makes the

SEO process so much easier. Even sneakier, try using your competitor’s name as a keyword and

see what comes up…



To get the greatest benefit from keyword research, you should aim to have a unique set of

keywords for each page on your website. For example, if your website has a page each for:



 Office stationery

 School stationery

 Home stationery



Then the best thing to do is create a separate set of keywords (i.e., carry out keyword research)

for each page. This will allow you to capitalize on each page, not just your home page.



And that’s it for your first chapter – here’s a recap on your homework:



1. Using the Google Keyword Tool, create a list of 20 – 30 keywords relevant to your

website with good search volume

2. Using the Keyword Difficulty Tool, assess the competition of each keyword

3. Refine the list to 3 – 5 keywords with good search volume and low competition



PS - If you’re looking to cut down the time spent on keyword research, I would recommend

trying Brad Callen’s (the SEO guru) Niche Finder. Niche Finder makes keyword research a

breeze, and allows you to better use your time elsewhere.



In the next chapter, I’ll show you how to use these keywords on your website and optimize

your website to start raking in the abundance of traffic (prospects) that Google has to offer.









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Chapter 3: On-Site Optimization

In the last chapter, we discussed the first and most important element of search engine

optimization, keyword research. By now, you should have created your refined keyword list.

Next, I will show you how to use the keywords on your actual website using a process called

on-site optimization.



Before Proceeding



Please make sure that you have done the following two things:

1. Registered a free SEOMoz account (it’s free for 30 days, which is all that you need) –

we will use the data in this chapter. Click here to register.

2. Performed your keyword research – if not, please go back to the Keyword

Research chapter.



Once That’s Done, Read On…



SEO comprises of two main elements – on-site optimization and off-site optimization. The first

refers to everything that you do to your actual site and its contents to make it search-engine

“friendly”, and the second refers to everything outside of your website. We will focus on on-

page optimization for now though… (Off-site optimization is the topic of your fourth chapter).



Essentially, you can be in one of two positions at the moment, both of which have their

respective pros and cons:



 You currently have an existing website and want to edit it to be better optimized

 You are planning on registering a new website and want to optimize it from the start



Either way, the same rules apply. It is however somewhat easier to build a new site with SEO in

mind from the start, than to rework an entire existing site to be more optimized. It is

important to note that a lot of on-site optimization requires a basic understanding of HTML

coding. If you don’t have this understanding, you can simply instruct your website designer to

edit the page as required. Don’t be put off by the lingo used here – you can pop me an email if

you get lost!



Before we get started



Open up your SEOMoz dashboard and scroll to the “Crawl Diagnostics” section. Keep this

window open whilst reading on and take note of the different elements discussed here in

comparison with what is shown on your crawl diagnostics.









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Above: The On-Site SEO Crawl Diagnostics





The Essential Elements of On-Site Optimization



Whilst there are entire books written on this topic, the following are essentials that every site

needs to have. There is endless depth to each element, but I am only going to touch on the

basics to get you started. Most of the time, these are all you need in any case.



How you go about creating and editing these tags will differ depending on how your website is

built. Some of the most popular website creation options include Adobe Dreamweaver, Joomla,

and WordPress. Whatever system you use (or your designer has used), these elements can

easily be implemented.



Title Tag – Your title tag (the name of your page) needs to reflect your chosen keywords. If you

have chosen 3 keywords, you should put those three keywords in your title tag, separated by

commas. If you are able to make a natural title with most of the keywords included – even

better! For optimum display results, keep your title tag to a maximum of 70 characters.



Meta Tags – Meta tags serve to tell the search engines what the website is all about. There are

essentially a summary or introduction to the website, and as such are quite important. There

are essentially two important meta tags, namely:



 Keywords Tag – Insert your chosen keywords in this tag, separating each keyword

using a comma. You can have as many or as few as you like. Google does not take note

of this tag, but smaller search engines still do.



 Description Tag – Insert a description of the page in this tag. The description that you

use in this tag will be what Google shows when your page is ranked. Remember, this is

your opportunity to get people to click through to your site, so write it something like

a mini advert. So many websites waste this opportunity by writing drab copy which

inspires a zero click-through rate from their prospective customers. This is such a

waste, especially if you are ranking well. Try sprinkling your keywords throughout this

tag as well if possible. For optimum results, keep your description tag to around 160

characters.









Above: The Meta Description & Keyword Tags Of http://www.edmicah.com/seopro





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Tip – If Meta tags have got you confused, simply

visit http://www.addme.com/meta.htm which can generate your Meta tags for you to copy

and paste, or hand the job over to your website designer. This shouldn’t take them more than

a few minutes.



Header Tags – The header tags show the search engines headings on your page (or else they

would just see headings as normal text). At the top of the page, insert you main keyword, and

label it as a “Header 1” or “H1” tag. You can also insert your second keyword and label it is “H2”

if this looks natural. Don’t force it if its look unnatural. Remember, people need to be able to

understand your website as well.



Something to note – for best results, customize your title, meta and header tags to each page

on your website. This will require going back to the keyword research phase and researching

keywords for each page, but is well worth it. An example of this would be a company that sells

stationery, having different pages optimized for different products. For example, pens and

pencils on one page (optimized with relevant keywords) and calculators and electronic items

on another page (optimized with another set of relevant keywords).

Remember, the more keywords your website is optimized for, the more opportunity you have

of being picked up on different terms in Google. Try to keep each page down to 3-5 keywords

though.



Alt Image Tags – Unfortunately, although to us humans, a picture is worth a thousand words,

this is not the case with search engines. Search engines cannot see pictures and as such they

need to be “tagged” with an Alt tag. Edit the alt tag of each picture on your website to describe

what the picture is about – you can even use your keywords if they are relevant to the picture.



Domain Address – Ideally, you want to get a domain name (your www address) that reflects

your chosen keywords. For example, if your main keyword was “stationery new york”, then

having the domain address, http://www.stationery-new-york.com would yield the best

possible SEO results. Quite often, this factor alone can secure you a top position on Google for

your keyword. PS – for the cheapest and easiest domain registrations, visit GoDaddy.



Obviously this is easy for a new site, but what if you already have an existing website? The best

bet then is to try register a better domain (one with your keyword in it) – move your site

across, and then ask your service provider to do a 301 redirect (they’ll know what this is) to

your new site. This way, you won’t lose any customers who still type in your original address as

they’ll be automatically redirected. Alternatively, just leave it as is – don’t worry about this too

much. Keyword domains are not the be all and end all of SEO – they simply assist in the

process.



File Names – Just like your domain address, each file name (page) should reflect a keyword.

For example, if your website has a page that is all about office furniture, then that page’s file

name should be “office-furniture.html”. Notice that I use a hyphen as opposed to a space, as

this is search engine “friendly”.



Content – Content is king when it comes to SEO. The more fresh, quality and unique content

(information, text, news, etc) you can put on your website, the better. Now you might be

thinking “but I’ve got nothing to write about”. There are endless things that you can write

about on your website including:



 Product information





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 Product reviews

 Testimonials

 Industry news

 Company news

 Specials

 Upcoming events

 Support and instruction manuals

 Tips and advice

 How-to articles



Tip: You can also hire a freelance writer to write quality, informative articles for you, for as

little as $10 per article.



Within all of the content on your site, try to mix in your keywords at a ratio of 1% – 2%. For

example, if your page has 500 words on it, try to get your keywords in 5 – 10 times. This is

called “keyword density” and is a hotly debated topic in SEO circles. My advice – keep it

natural and don’t “stuff keywords” just to meet your quota. Rather under do it than overdo it.

Both the search engines and your website visitors will see through this “trick” immediately.



Content is possibly the single most important on-site optimization factors. Always try to keep

your content fresh and interesting. The more regularly you update your website, the more

regularly the search engines will “crawl” the site (crawling refers to the search engine visiting

your website). So rather do little bits regularly, than one big batch once every six

months. Consistency is the name of the game here.



Rich, fresh content will also ultimately get your website ranked for keywords other than the

ones you have specifically chosen. This is a great freebie that really makes content creation

well worth the time and effort.



Tip: Add a simple WordPress blog to your site (or ask your designer to do so), and you’ll be

able to easily add news, articles, and so forth whenever you want (without having to pay your

designer). Google also seems to have a certain affinity for blogs, so don’t be shy!



Internal Linking – Always link to other pages in your website using text links. A lot of websites

have “pretty” or “cool” looking navigation bars using images and/or flash, which the search

engines cannot read. Rather use text links with your keywords in them wherever possible.



For example, using the stationery example, a text link called “Pens & Pencils” which links to the

page about pens & pencils is ideal. This tells the search engines what the page is about, as

opposed to an image which tells them nothing about the page.

Remember to have a “Home” link on every page to take visitors back to the home page – BUT

– try not to call it “Home” – use an appropriate keyword which tells Google what the page is

about.



What Not To Do…



I’ve mentioned the basic elements that you need to incorporate into your website to ensure

that the search engines can easily “crawl” it. Of course, there are also certain “no-no’s” when it

comes to on-page optimization. You might read about these “tricks” on SEO websites, but I

assure you that they are not of any use (at least not any more). These include:







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 Frames – Search engines don’t like frames (at all!). Some search engines (such as

Ananzi) even go so far as to disallow them altogether. If you or your designer is using

frames on your website, find an alternative – quickly!.

 Flash – Although Flash looks nice and can add some user-friendliness to your site, it’s

useless to search engines. They cannot read the site, and for that reason cannot rank it.

Avoid flash. Consider the value of traffic vs. “prettiness”…

 Keyword Overuse – As mentioned earlier, your maximum keyword density on any

given page should be 2-3%. Remember that this includes any titles and navigation text.

 Image Overuse – Similar to flash, search engines can’t “read” images, so they don’t

contribute very much to your SEO efforts. Use images where necessary (there’s

nothing worse than a boring, drab website), but don’t overdo it. Also, when using

images, make use of the “Alt Tag”, which allows you to provide a text description of

the image. This gives the search engines a much better idea of what the image is

actually about.

 Hidden Text – Some optimizers stuff a whole bunch of keyword rich “babble” at the

bottom of the website, and then make it the same color as the background so as to

hide it. The idea is that the search engines will like it and the human visitors won’t see

it. Unfortunately the search engines caught on to this tactic ages ago. I will go into

more detail about these “black hat” techniques in a later chapter.



That’s it for this chapter – here’s your “homework”:



 Using what you’ve learned in this chapter, assess your site’s on-site crawl stats

in SEOMoz.

 If you design and manage your own website, implement as many of the above

mentioned optimization methods as possible. If you’re stuck, you’ll most likely be able

to find the answer by “Googling” it. Remember that your site is meant to serve its

visitors, not just search engines – so keep it as natural as possible… Balance is vital.

Also ensure that any MAJOR errors in SEOMoz are corrected.

 If you outsource your website design and maintenance (as most people do), get in

touch with your designer and tell them what to amend. Be very specific with them as

to what you want and need done – Remember that most website designers are not

SEO experts. Don’t take it for granted that they have implemented any of the above

tactics into your website as is.



In the next chapter, it’s time for lift off! Once you’ve completed your homework, I’ll be taking

you through the process of getting your website listed in the main search engines as quickly as

possible with the best starting position.









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Chapter 4: Getting Listed

In the last chapter, I gave you all the necessary information to ensure that your website design

(on-site optimization) was in-line with what the search engines want to see. Now that that’s

done, it’s lift-off time! In this chapter I will be showing you how to get your website indexed in

the essential search engines as quickly as possible.



Please Remember



Do not proceed to this step until your on-site optimization is complete and all major errors

in SEOMoz are corrected – such errors will negatively impact your sites listing.



NB – Even if your website is already listed on Google or other search engines, please complete

this chapter. Apart from ensuring that all your important pages get indexed, this chapter also

lays down important fundamentals for future chapters.



First, we will start with the basic groundwork, and then I’ll show you some tips and tricks to get

the wheels turning faster. Let’s start with Google. To submit your site to Google is quick and easy:



1. Go to http://www.google.com/addurl

2. Enter your URL (website address), complete the spam protection, and click the “Add

URL” button. PS – you don’t need to write anything in the “Comments” box.

3. Google will then review your site on its next crawl.









Above: Google's Add URL Page



For more information on Google’s webmaster requirements, be sure to read their Webmaster

Guidelines. The second search engine that you need to submit your website to is Yahoo. Yahoo

is not as popular as Google, but is still worth submitting your website to. Visit

http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit and select the “Submit a website or webpage”

option. Submission in Yahoo is not guaranteed, but certainly worth the effort. Please note that







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you will need to register for a Yahoo account (this is free) in order to complete the submission.

Follow the steps and your site will be added to the Yahoo queue.



Yahoo also offers paid submissions, but I wouldn’t suggest spending the money unless there is

a specific reason you wish to target the Yahoo audience (which is slightly different to the

Google audience).



The third search engine that you need to submit your site to is Bing (previously MSN). Bing,

once again, is not as popular as Google, but is nonetheless, still worth submitting to. To submit

to Bing, visit: http://www.bing.com/webmaster/SubmitSitePage.aspx and submit your site’s

details.









Above: Bing's Website Submission Page



The fourth place you want to submit your website to is dmoz. This is more of a directory than a

search engine (although it has a search function), but is well worth being listed on. Because it

is human edited (as opposed to search engine crawlers), it holds good weight in the eyes of

other search engines.



First off, visit http://www.dmoz.org. Then click your way through the relevant category, sub-

category and so on until you get to a subsection that would best describe your website. It is

critically important that you find the best suited sub-section for your listing – failing this, your

site will definitely not be accepted.



You can then click the “Suggest URL” link and submit your link for consideration. Once again,

there are no guarantees here, but getting listed will be well worth the effort. Dmoz does take a

while to list pages (up to 3 months in my experience), so be patient.









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Congratulations, Step 1 is Complete!



There are, of course, many other search engines, but most of them either siphon off of the

bigger engines or are not worth the time spent submitting to them. Below is a market share

report of the popular search engines – notice how Google holds an average of 82% of the

market share…









Above: Search Engine Market Share July 2011



The above-mentioned methods will ensure that your website has the best chance of being

indexed in the major search engines, but will generally take some time (usually between 4 – 8

weeks). In the interim, there are some simple tactics that you can use to attempt to get your

website indexed sooner. Note that “attempt” is the keyword here, as none of these are

guaranteed, but are most likely to work.



Digg It – Visit http://www.digg.com and register (click on the “Join Digg” link) as a user (it’s

quick and easy). You can also use your Facebook login details to log in to Digg. Once logged in,

click the “Submit New” link and submit your website. This will usually get your site indexed in

Google within a day or two. Depending on what your site has to offer, you may also find

yourself getting a bit of traffic from Digg.



Forums – Forums are online discussion boards, where registered users discuss various topics,

news and so forth. Visit a popular forum (you can assess the popularity by checking how often

members are posting on the forum) that is related to your line of business (you can find a

relevant forum using Google) and register as a member (this is free).



Then, in the user control panel, edit your signature to include a link to your website. Once this

is done, have a look through the forums and make some “worthy” posts. By worthy, I mean

write something useful – don’t just make a comment like “Great Idea!” in order to get a link to

your site – this is called spamming.









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PS – In the following chapter, you will learn just how powerful forums can be. In the interim,

get into the habit of participating in these “communities” – they will bring you traffic down the

line… See forums as an online community of like-minded folks – get involved!



Google Webmasters – Google Webmasters is a free resource provided by Google for

webmasters (website owners) such as yourself. Apart from what we’re using it for here,

Webmasters can also provide you with useful information about how Google views your

website over time. Play around with this – it’s very powerful.



Visit http://webmasters.google.com/ and register for an account (once again, free!). You will

then need to add your site (the process is fairly simple with step by step instructions) and

verify ownership. Once this is done, you will need to submit what is called a sitemap to Google

Webmasters.



To do this, visit http://www.xml-sitemaps.com and create a sitemap.

You then need to upload the sitemap to your server via FTP (or ask your webmaster or

designer to do so). Once this is done, go back into Google Webmasters and submit the sitemap

to Webmasters (once again, follow instructions to do this).



The sitemap tells Google where to find all of your website’s pages (not just the home page)

and make the process simpler (and therefore faster!). Google Webmasters will also give you

valuable information about your website’s rankings and performance further down the line.









Above: The Google Webmaster Central Homepage



PS – Check out the Google Webmaster Blog for interesting blog posts directly from Google.

They will usually keep you up to date with SEO advice directly from Google, ensuring that you

keep your within the recommended SEO best practices.



Google Local – This is only applicable for websites which represent a local business. In other

words, a business that provides products or services in a specific area or city. Google Local is a

great tool for local businesses as it can guarantee you a first page position with minimal effort

on certain keywords. If you’re involved in local business, be sure to try this one out!









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Above: A localized result for the term "Hotel New York"



Above I typed “Hotel New York” into Google and these local business results came up on the

first page. These results are completely separate from organic results (SEO driven results) and

are a great extra if your business is “local in nature”.



To register visit http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter and register your local

business (just follow the easy instructions). You will need to verify your telephone number, so

keep your phone near. Usually you’ll pop up within a week or two of registering – Easy!

Once you have completed all the above-mentioned ground-work, all you can do is sit back,

relax and wait to be indexed. There are many companies on the internet who claim that they

can get your site indexed in a matter of hours. Don’t waste your money on these sorts of

schemes – even if they do work, they’re simply not worth paying for.



You may also come across companies who promise to submit your site to thousands of search

engines at once. Realistically, there is simply no value to submitting your site to these search

engines as they will all ultimately index your website with time (due to the fact that they feed

off the results of the big search engines). Don’t fall for the abundance of “quick-fix” solutions

you are bound to find online.



That’s all for this chapter. Your “homework” for this week:



1. Submit your website on Google, Yahoo, Bing and Dmoz.

2. Digg your website address (also Digg any pages you wish to have indexed).

3. Register on some relevant forums and create your signature with your website link in

it. Then make some (constructive) posts.

4. Register on Google Webmasters, then create and upload your XML sitemap.

5. Register on Google Local if your business or website is local in nature.



Follow these steps and I can guarantee that your website will be indexed in the shortest time

possible. Remember that the position at which your website gets initially indexed is not the be

all and end all of your ranking ability, but in fact the starting point. From there, you will most

likely rise.









[17]

Usually you will be indexed a good few pages back in the search engines to begin with (this is

called the supplementary index). In the next chapter, I will show you how to begin improving

your rank using a process called off-site optimization.



PS – If the above has got you feeling confused, and you’re considering outsourcing SEO, have a

look at these guys – their service is great and I’d recommend them.







Chapter o5: Off-Site Optimization

In your last chapter, I gave you the run-down on how to get your website listed with the major

search engines (Google, Yahoo & Bing) in the shortest time possible. Following those

instructions, your website should be indexed by now, usually a good few pages back in what is

called the “supplementary index”.



Before Getting Started



Before we start with this chapter, you will need to check your current rankings for your chosen

keywords. To do this:



1. Log in to your SEOMoz dashboard

2. Scroll down to the “Keyword Rankings” section

3. Click the “See All Keyword Rankings” button









Above: Click The "See All Keyword Rankings" Button



You will then be presented with a listing of your current keyword rankings. It’s quite possible

that you will not yet be in the top 10 results (first page), but don’t stress. You site will start

ranking in due course…



Once That’s Done…



This week’s chapter is all about improving your initial position (as noted above), hopefully to

the first page of the search results (even better, to positions 1 -3). Please note that everything

that we will discuss in this chapter takes time to affect your search results. SEO efforts usually

take between 1 – 2 months to bear fruit, with some taking up to half of a year (all dependent on

the competition). SEO is a slow process, but well worth it nonetheless.



First off, I need to give you an over-simplified explanation of how the search engines work.

Essentially, ranking well in the major search engines is a matter of “internet popularity”. The

more links there are pointing to your website from other pages on the internet (other



[18]

websites), the more popular (and trustworthy) your site is perceived to be (by Google and co),

and therefore the better it will rank in the search engines.



These links are referred to as “backlinks”. In the early days of SEO (remember that I said SEO is

ever-evolving), you could get backlinks from any old website and gain a good position.

Nowadays, for backlinks to have any effect on your ranking they need to come from relevant

websites – this means that a link to an office stationery website, coming from a plumbing

supplies website, would hold very little weight in the eyes of Google.



However, if the same link came from an office furniture type website, this could be seen as

relevant as they are both in the same market (yes, search engines are quite clever these days!)

and thus would carry good weight. Also, the quality, popularity and trustworthiness of the

website linking to yours plays a big role in how that link is valued – such as .edu (educational

purposed websites) and .gov(Governmental websites) websites which weighted more than all

the others. If the link comes from a brand new website with no credibility or trustworthiness,

that link would not be as powerful as one that came from an “authority” site, which has built

up a strong reputation over the years.



There are of course many other smaller contributing factors when it comes to off-site

optimization, but to keep things simple, I am going to focus on the “backlink” aspect of it. If

you have chosen your keywords well (i.e: non-competitive keywords), normal backlinking

should be more than enough in terms of off-site optimization. It is speculated that the number

of relevant backlinks pointing to your site can account for up to 70% of its position in the

search engine results.



So, if the recipe is more backlinks = higher ranking, how do we get more backlinks?



There are many ways to build backlinks to your website, but I am going to discuss only the

ones I have found most effective and “do-able” from a time efficiency point of view.



Forums – Register on popular forums that are relevant to your websites topic (there are

hundreds of forums on the internet – just search on Google for “your topic forum”. Edit your

forum signature to reflect your website address and make a few posts on the forums every

week. You don’t need to write essays on the forums – constructive comments will do. Never

blatantly promote your website in a forum (i.e., write a post about it) as this will usually get

you banned. Forums are moderated by humans who keep a keen eye out or abusers.









Above: A Typical Online Forum



[19]

PS – Due to the abuse of forums for SEO purposes, many forums only allow you to implement

a signature after a certain number of days or posts (or both). Stick it out and wait your turn, as

these sites generally have more “weight” in the eyes of the search engines due to their “rules”.



Blogs – Find and follow some blogs that are relevant to your business (once again, you can use

Google for this) and post constructive comments on any posts. Be sure to include your link in

all comments. Blogs are usually strictly moderated, so don’t try to outsmart the system and

write “spammy” comments just to get a link. You will be banned quicker than you think and all

your efforts will be wasted. Many optimizers use blog commenting as their only SEO tactic and

enjoy good results – don’t underestimate the power of blogging!



Website Directories – Website directories contain links pointing to websites in many different

categories (similar to a Yellow Pages of the web). You can submit your website into the

relevant category and generally get a backlink for free. Although these are not the ultimate link

building tools, they are worth the once-off effort of submitting to.



Article Marketing – This is by far the most popular method of generating long-term backlinks

and establishing yourself as an expert in your field. How it works is as follows:



1. You write an article on a topic relevant to your line of business (you don’t need to be

an award-winning author – a simple “How-To” article of 400 words will do – you’ll be

surprised how easy this is).

2. You write a short biography promoting your website or business with two links to your

website in it (your bio is usually just a few words). This is placed at the bottom of the

article (similar to articles written in print publications such as Entrepreneur Magazine

and other business magazines.

3. You then submit the article to article directory sites, which will publish the article

online. Your biography and two links go into the “resource box”. This creates two

backlinks for every directory you submit to – can you see the potential?



I personally recommend the following article directories as they are popular and quickly

indexed by Google:



1. http://www.ezinearticles.com (Google loves this one)

2. http://www.goarticles.com (Quick and easy)

3. http://www.articledashboard.com (Easy to use system)

4. http://www.ideamarketers.com (Instantly published)



You will need to register on these directories in order to submit your article (don’t worry, it’s

free!). Depending on the directory, submission can take 1-14 days, but once your article is

published, it’s there forever. EzineArticles also awards “expert author” status as it sees fit,

which will result in your articles getting approved within 24 – 48 hours.









[20]

Above: The Ezine Articles Home Page



Article marketing is an incredibly effective long-term link building strategy and is easier than

most people think. If you can commit to writing one article per month, you are ensuring at

least 10 new backlinks every month. The more, the merrier of course! You can also outsource

article writing to ghost writers from as little as $10 per article.



Something to note – Keep your article submitting activity consistent throughout the process.

Submitting 40 articles once-off and then doing nothing for 6 months will raise a flag with the

search engines. Rather commit to a lower figure and continue submitting articles on a regular

basis.



The “Trick” to Article Marketing…

If you really want to maximize the number of backlinks that you receive per article (and I

recommend you do), there are two excellent article syndication (distribution) services that I

recommend. Both of these distribute your articles across the web, allowing you to maximize

the number of backlinks you receive per article.



1. SubmitYourArticle – If there is only one tool that I recommend for link building,

SubmitYourArticle would be it. SYA automatically submits your article to all the major

article directories (including EzineArticles, GoArticles, IdeaMarketers, etc) as well as a

powerful blog network of publishers. For every directory that accepts your article, as

well as every blog, you gain two powerful backlinks. For more information, click here.



2. SEOLinkVine – SLV submits your article to a huge network of blogs (I mean HUGE!) and

ensures that they are released in a natural fashion, so as to grow backlinks gradually

over time. The system works incredibly well. For more information, click here.



BONUS DOWNLOAD - I have included a list of over 650 high page rank websites that allows

you to create backlinks that links back to your website in the bonus area. The list consists of:

 31 Social Networks range from PR8-4;

 56 Article Directories range from PR5-2;

 74 Social Bookmarks range from PR8-3;

 406 Web2.0 Profiles range from PR8-2;

 and 84 .edu websites



[21]

Something to remember when creating backlinks there are two types of basics backlinks:



1. Standard Backlink – http://www.backlink.com (i.e., just the normal www-type link)

2. Anchor Text Backlink – Backlink (i.e., text that is hyperlinked to a website)



Although it is fine to simply write your link as http://www.yourdomain.com, this doesn’t tell

the search engine very much about the backlink. Therefore the best way to write backlinks is

by using your keywords (anchor text backlink). For example, if your website

is http://www.stationery-new-york.com and your main keyword is “Stationery New York”,

then your backlink using the keyword should be Stationery New York.



This way, when the search engines crawl your article and come across your backlinks, they

know what the link is about and this ultimately increases your website’s ranking for that

keyword.



Note – Not all article directories allow HTML code, so sometimes you will only be able to use

your http://www.yourdomain.com type link. This is absolutely fine, as it creates backlink

diversity (i.e. not all backlinks are 100% identical, which could raise a flag with Google).



How many backlinks do you need in order to rank well?



The number of backlinks that you will need to rank well for any given keyword depends

completely on the competition for that keyword. An easy way to assess this is to go to Google

and search for your keyword. Then write down the three top results’ addresses.



Next, log in to your SEOMoz account, and select the “Research Tools” tab, followed by the

“Linkscape” button.









Above: The Linkscape Link Analysis Tool



One by one, enter he URL of your three main competitors to assess their backlinks. What you

want to take note of is the “Links to the page” figure, and the “Root Domains linking to the

page” figure. These two figures will give you a rough idea as to how many links you need to

build in order to rank similarly to that page. Note that this is a very broad and inexact figure, as

it does not account for link quality, relevance, or any on-page factors. It is however a good

indicator of competitor strength.









[22]

Running an “Advanced Report” will also show you where they get their links from. Very often

you will be able to replicate these links by approaching the linkers. You will also be given some

ideas as to how to get links by assessing this data.



That’s all for this chapter… Your homework is as follows:



1. Register on at least four forums that are relevant to your line of business and insert

your backlink in your signature (if this is allowed off the bat). Make some (constructive)

posts.

2. Find at least four blogs that are relevant to your line of business and contribute some

comments including your backlink.

3. Write a basic 400–600 word article related to your website (try a “How-To” or “101” if

possible)

4. Register on the article sites and submit your article with a backlink or two (using the

resource box) or

5. Check your competitor’s link strength using SEOMoz and take note of link

opportunities



Commit to doing the above-mentioned tasks on a regular basis (be it daily, weekly or monthly).

Don’t do one big “blast” and then disappear. Remember that SEO is a long-term investment

and results take time. On average, it will take 1-2 months for any effort you put in now to

influence your search position. Don’t become disheartened by the process – simply stick to

your commitment and it will pay off in time.



Most importantly, be consistent. Off-site optimization needs to be an ongoing process, even if

it’s only for 2 hours a month. Search engines want to see consistency, as this reflects

trustworthiness.









Chapter 6: Social Media & SEO

You may be wondering what social media has to do with SEO, and you’d be wise to ask such a

question. In early 2011, Google’s Matt Cutts made a statement that Google does in fact

incorporate social media signals into its ranking factors, whilst Bing struck a deal with

Facebook around the same time to incorporate Facebook’s user data into the Bing algorithm.

The bottom line is this:



Social Media Influences SEO – Confirmed



The big question is of course, how? Well, at this point there’s a lot of speculation and many

theories going around as to what signals influence the rankings and how. Rather, I’ll discuss

the essential social elements that need to be taken note of so as to make sure that you take

advantage of both social media and SEO as best possible. Social media is a huge topic, with

new platforms popping up almost daily. We will however focus only on the bare necessities

of Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube.



Facebook

Facebook is the most popular social media platform on the web with millions upon millions of

users. From an SEO point of view, you should note the following:





[23]

The Like Button



Integrate a Facebook Like button on every page of your site. Set the URL of the like script to

your homepage (not your fan page – if you have one) and display the like button prominently

on your website. SEOMoz’s research has found a very strong correlation between a web page’s

Likes/Shares and their ranking in Google’s index. To do this:



1. Visit http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/

2. Enter your homepage URL in the “URL to Like” field

3. Deselect the “Send Button” option (Having this selected converts the code language to

a trickier version, hence the suggestion)

4. Adjust the width of the button to fit your site (190 pixels works really well in most

cases, but it’s up to you)

5. Deselect “Show Faces” (You can leave it active if you want, but I’ve found it tricky to

implement into a fixed space as it only shows the faces of your friends who have liked

the site, which means that the required space varies depending on the visitor…)

6. Select an appropriate color scheme (light or dark) and font type

7. Click the “Get Code” button and copy and paste the code to your site



If this all sounds a little confusing, you can easily delegate the task to your website designer.

It’s an easy task and they can’t charge you much for it.









Above: The Facebook Like Button Script Generator



The Fan Page



Every website should have a Facebook fan page. You can use

your fan page to keep visitors up to date with the latest news,

to handle inquiries or complaints, and so much more. The

reason I suggest a Facebook page as opposed to a group is

that a page is crawlable by Google and the other search

engines. Groups, on the other hand, are only accessible to

members.



Setting up your fan page is really simple, and Facebook has

different page types for different types of businesses, sites, etc.

To get started, simply log in to your personal Facebook

account, and click the “Pages” button. From there, Facebook

will take you through the process. You can also heavily Above: Facebook Pages Tab







[24]

customize your page to match your website’s branding etc, but that is not of importance from

an SEO perspective.



Twitter

Twitter follows Facebook as the second most popular social media platform online. Twitter is a

great tool for updating your clients/customers about your company, participating in

conversations with them, reputation management and more. In terms of SEO, the strongest

correlation factor is retweets. Retweets are when someone re-tweets what you’ve tweeted. In

other words, the more useful/entertaining/important your tweet is, the more it will be

retweeted and shared amongst the Twitter community. Also, the more influential and

established those who retweet your tweet are, the better.



The Twitter Button



Ideally, you want as many people as possible to tweet about your site. The easiest way to

achieve this is to integrate a Twitter button on your site in a prominent place (ideally next to or

below your Facebook Like button). The easier you make it for visitors to tweet about your site,

the more likely it is that they will. To get a Twitter button, do the following:



1. Visit http://twitter.com/about/resources/tweetbutton

2. Choose your button style (with a counter, without, etc)

3. Copy and paste the code to your site









Above: The Various Twitter Button Styles



Twitter Account



In addition to having a Twitter button on your site, you should also establish a Twitter account

for your site. This is really easy – all you need to do is visit http://www.twitter.com and

register an account. Be sure to customize your account to make it stand out, and upload a

profile picture (company logo, a portrait of yourself, etc) as this adds a lot of credibility to your

account (as opposed to the thousands of spam accounts on Twitter).



Next, make a few tweets about whatever might be suitable to your industry and target market.

Tweet about your site, other sites, whatever – as long as it’s of value to your target market.

This legwork is in preparation for the next step - marketing your Twitter account.



Promote your Twitter account wherever you can – on your website, in your email newsletters,

offline media – wherever you can! In the beginning, you will be tweeting to pretty much

nobody – don’t be put off. This is a necessity – you can’t expect people to follow you if your

account is empty! Don’t forget to do the same for your Facebook account…





[25]

Over time, you will start gaining followers – remember that the more value you provide on

Twitter, the more people will re-tweet you, which will lead to more followers. It’s all a game of

quality over quantity, so don’t buy followers or re-tweets or anything like that – they’re useless

and un-targeted. Also, following others often results in them following you back, so follow a

few select people to get the momentum going. But don’t overdo it – that’s just spammy.



Youtube

Youtube isn’t exactly a social media platform as such, but it is certainly an interactive form of

media, and is incredibly powerful. Your success on Youtube, like any other platform, relies on

providing quality content. Purely promotional content simply doesn’t fly. This said, there’s no

need to invest thousands in camera gear, scripts, props and video software – a simple webcam

and microphone will do (which most laptops have in any case). You can get started on Youtube

with any topics that may be of interest to your target market – some ideas:



 How To Videos

 Industry News

 Latest Specials

 Product/service Comparisons

 Humor (this is a tricky one, but can go very viral)

 Debate/Interviews



A great idea is to use your article marketing content and convert it into video. If you’re

producing great articles, chances are they’ll form a solid foundation for a video (or video

series). The possibilities with Youtube are really endless, and the more you do, the more ideas

you’ll get for content. Don’t be shy – amateur videos are what Youtube is all about!









Above:

Justin Bieber's Baby Music Video - 658 Million Views & Counting

To get the maximum SEO benefit from Youtube, keep the following in mind:



1. Use keywords in the titles – much like article marketing, try use your keyword in the

title to increase your chances of ranking. It is much easier to rank Youtube videos that

your own site (due to the SEO authority that Youtube has), and it is often easy to rank

a video for long-tail terms with little to no SEO effort.

2. Place your URL in the description – preferably right in the front. Remember to use the

full http:// version to ensure that you get an active link.

3. Upload a video transcription – Youtube does auto transcribe voice to text, but it is

often flawed. Download the transcription and correct it to ensure maximum

“readability” by Google.

4. Embed your video – Embed your video on your website once published – doing this

counts as a link to the video, and therefore assists in SEO.







In Summary



[26]

This chapter simply introduces the relationship between social media and SEO – and is by no

means all there is to it. The most important takeaway here is that social media does influence

search, and above all, quality, useful content is what works. The biggest benefit of using social

media as an SEO tactic is that the benefit is two-fold. Not only will it assist you in rankings, but

if done correctly, will provide its own ROI. It’s a no-brainer – social is here to stay.



For more information on social media, I recommend the following resources:



 Dan Zarella – Social Media Researcher

 Social Media Today – Social media news and trends

 The SEOMoz Blog – More “SEO focused” social media analysis



In the next chapter, we look at SEO No Nos – like all things, there’s a right way and a wrong

way – here we discuss how to avoid getting burned…









Chapter 7: SEO No No’s

In the last chapter, I took you through the essentials of off-site optimization. Following those

practices, you are guaranteed to enjoy long-term SEO success in the form of sustainable search

engine rankings. As with all things in life though, there are good and bad approaches, ethical

and unethical ways of doing things – SEO is no different. In this chapter, I will take you through

some of the “Black Hat” SEO techniques that need to be avoided.



Whilst most of these techniques are simply ineffective (due to the search engines catching

onto them as they pop up), even those that do work will only provide short-term results until

the search engines catch you. It is essential that you are aware of and can easily spot bad

practices so that you don’t get scammed into the next “wonder product” or service you see

(and there are hundreds of these).



The following are commonly used “Black Hat” SEO techniques…



Link Farms – Link farms are a group of websites set up with the sole purpose of creating

backlinks to other websites. They have minimal or zero useable content and simply link out to

other sites. You can usually purchase links from these farms (so as to increase your number of

backlinks) for a price, but this is simply not worth it. As soon as the search engines recognize

the site as link farm, they ignore all the links. In fact, you could get penalized for using such a

service and ruin all you legitimate SEO efforts.



When I was new to SEO, I bought 1000 backlinks from one of these link farms and anticipated

huge results. Google Webmasters only picked up about 30 of them (out of a thousand!) and

within a month or two they were lost (or removed). I was just lucky that I didn’t get banned!

Cross Linking – Similar to link farms, this is the practice of linking between a whole lot of

websites that you own. Apart from being ineffective, the cost of this sort of practice is simply a

waste of money (considering that you can easily get links from writing articles, etc).



Cloaking – Cloaking essentially involves having two different pages – one that your visitors see

and one that the search engines see. This allows you to create a heavily optimized page for the





[27]

search engines, and a very “pretty” page for users. This practice is strongly frowned upon by

search engines and will in most cases get your site banned within a few months.









Above: Cloaking Explained



Keyword & Tag Stuffing – This involves stuffing your title, meta and header tags with

keywords unnaturally. Remember that SEO is all about keeping a balance between search

engine readability and human readability. A header stuffed with keywords doesn’t make much

sense to either party!



Hidden Text – In order to create keyword rich content on pages, some sly optimizers will insert

a whole lot of keyword rich text at the bottom of the page, which is the same color at the

background – thus making it invisible to humans but visible to search engines. This used to

work quite well, until the search engines caught on… Don’t waste your time trying this.



Link Pages/Exchanges – Often you will find websites with “Link Pages” or “Resource Pages”.

They will use this page to exchange links with other sites (thus increasing backlinks). Although

this isn’t particularly frowned upon by search engines, it doesn’t carry very much weight, if any

at all. They simply see it for what it is and ignore the links thereon. One-way, relevant links is

what SEO is all about!









[28]

Above: Example Of Keyword Stuffing



Excessive Internal Linking – Using internal links to direct visitors to relevant content on your

site is an excellent practice. Using internal links excessively simply for the sake of creating links

is not. Create internal links where you feel that they would make your site more user-friendly –

don’t overdo it.



Spamblogs – These are machine generated blogs (or sometimes user created) that exist purely

to push keyword rich content onto a blog and draw search engine rankings. If you are going to

use a blog on your website (which I recommend you do), write quality content which will draw

real visitors, not just search engines. If you are using the odd syndicated blog post, that is fine,

provided that it is balanced with good, unique content. A good blog can generate a huge

amount of trust for you or your company and make the sales process infinitely easier.



Wiki Spam – Due to the fact that anyone can edit the pages on a Wiki, like

http://www.Wikipedia.com, some optimizers used to insert their own links on relevant Wikipedia

pages to get ranked well. This is now a fruitless effort for two reasons:



1. These links are usually removed by other users before you can blink

2. These links have what a called “no follow” tags – which means that even if Google saw

the link in time, it would disregard it in any case.









Above: Example Of Wiki Spam

There are countless other “Black Hat” SEO methods available, with new ones developing every

day. The bottom line is this – if you want long term SEO success, you have to do things the

right way. Understandably, legitimate SEO takes time and can be frustrating, but it’s all worth

it in the long term. Remember that black hat techniques also take time, and ultimately have no

guarantee.



[29]

If you’re not sure whether SEO methods you’re using are “White Hat” or “Black Hat”, just

Google it or pop me an email and I’ll clarify it for you. Another great resource is the Google

Webmaster Central Blog:



http://www.googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/



That’s all for this chapter. Your “homework” is simple – make sure that you’re not doing any of

the above! I also suggest subscribing to the SEOMoz blog, as they offer excellent white-hat SEO

advice, to ensure your site’s SEO longevity.



In the next chapter, we’ll be looking at Pay Per Click (also known as PPC) and how you can use

it to get top positions for your desired keywords today!







Chapter 8: Pay Per Click 101

In the last chapter, I gave you a run-down on the common “Black Hat” SEO techniques or what

we call SEO spam. These techniques are used mostly because they get your website well-

ranked, relatively quickly. There is however another way to get excellent search positions very

quickly (and 100% legitimately) using a tool called Pay Per Click (or PPC) advertising.



What is Pay Per Click Advertising?



Whenever you search for something on Google, it will return two sets of results (whether you

know it or not!).



 Organic results – these are the normal results of the Google search (where your SEO

efforts reflect) and are positioned in the middle of the page (the green area below).

 Paid results – these are PPC adverts placed along the top and right-hand side of the

page (these are prime positions to feature results – indicated by the orange area

below).









Above: Placement Of PPC Adverts







[30]

PPC allows you to create an advert that will be displayed whenever someone searches for a

particular keyword or phrase. There is no cost to display the advert as such since you only pay

when someone clicks your advert.



Of course, PPC is a paid advertising option and as such, does not fall directly under SEO (nor

does it in any way affect your organic SEO results). It can however, compliment your SEO

endeavors by allowing you to “pay” for difficult keywords, as well as fill the time gap between

optimizing your website and getting it well ranked. The biggest benefits of PPC are that:



 Your website does not need to be changed in any way (unlike SEO)

 Setup is quick and easy, and results are noticeable within hours



There are many PPC advertising programs and networks available online, but I will be focusing

on Google’s PPC network, called Google Adwords, as this is by far the most popular, targeted,

and user-friendly system available for normal advertisers - http://adwords.google.com



How does Google Adwords work?



Although Adwords offers a huge amount of control and customization in terms of how your

advertising campaign can be managed, the process can be simplified to the following essentials:



 You choose your desired keywords that you want your advert to appear for

 You create a text advert – similar to a classified (this is limited to a certain number of

characters)

 You choose your region to display the adverts (i.e., United States, Canada, South Africa,

etc)

 You set a maximum “per click” budget

 You set a daily budget



Your adverts will then be displayed as often as possible (dependant on the budget you’ve set

as well as the competition for your chosen keywords). Every time someone clicks your advert,

they will be taken through to your website (or page within your website) and you will be billed

for the click. This way, you only pay for actual visitors and not the thousands of other by

passers.



The cost per click essentially depends on the demand for the keyword used. It is therefore

imperative that you perform a keyword research analysis (as for choosing your SEO keywords)

before starting any PPC campaign. I once again recommend using the Adwords Keyword Tool

for this task.



https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal



Using the Keyword Tool, enter your broad keyword and search. Then go to the “Choose

columns to display” drop-down menu and select “Show Estimated Avg. CPC”. This will show

you the approximate cost per click of each keyword or phrase.



Once you have done this, sort these results by CPC from lowest cost to highest cost. From here,

you can select the most cost-effective keywords for your advert instead of wasting big money

on the keywords that all of your competitors are paying for. Rather go for a whole lot of cheap,

low volume keywords, as opposed to one or two expensive, high volume, high competition

keywords.





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You can also lower your cost per click be refining how your keywords are matched. For

example, do you want your advert to appear only when your keyword is searched for alone (i.e.

no other keywords or phrases accompanying it) or do you want it to be displayed when it is

searched for as part of a sentence?



Sometimes a keyword can mean something completely different when combined with other

words or phrases. Of course this will all be dependent on your industry and product or service.

The more specific you are, the lower the cost of the keyword (and more targeted your visitors

will be). Play around with this to see what works for you.



Once you’ve decided on your keywords, it’s time to write your advert. Standard copywriting

rules apply here:



 Write an attractive advert that stands out (Try differentiate from competition using

the same keyword)

 Be clear and concise (to avoid unqualified prospects from clicking on your ad)

 List the benefits of your product or service

 Include a telephone number if you wish (this will minimize the number of people

actually clicking, thus saving you costs) and ensure that there is a call to action.



Make sure that the advert takes them to a relevant page on your website. So many advertisers

miss this point – if a customer lands on your home page and still has to try find what they are

looking for, chances are that they will leave your website (despite you having already paid for

their click). Send visitors directly to a sales or informational page which they can act on – don’t

expect them to browse around your website looking for information.



PPC advertising is to a large degree, a process of testing, trial and error. There are numerous

factors which will influence the success of a campaign – all of which need to be tested and

tweaked over time. As mentioned in the beginning of the chapter – PPC cannot replace SEO,

and is at best a complementary system. Very simply, you can view PPC as the cherry on top!

If you have the budget to try out a PPC campaign, I would recommend doing so. If not, don’t

worry about it – rather put the effort into SEO. Remember, as long as a PPC campaign is

running, it will cost you money – whereas SEO, once implemented correctly, will never cost

you a cent.



PPC vs. SEO



As you can see above, PPC has some great benefits over SEO, such as quick setup time,

immediate results, and minimal on-site adjustments. But it is important to realize that the two

(PPC and SEO) need to work together to get the most out of your internet marketing plan. It is

estimated the PPC adverts only get about 25% of the total clicks, and as such, you cannot rely

solely on PPC (even if you have the budget!).



Below is a focus heat map which shows which areas people focus on when presented with a

results page in Google.



Notice how much focus is placed on the top 3-5 organic results, and how little is focused on

the PPC results (right hand side). Also notice the clicks (represented by purple crosses).









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Above: Focus Heatmap Of Google Results



Of course, the focus and click levels are different for each and every search, and depend on the

quality of the natural results, whether there are local mapped results for the particular search,

etc, but this is simply to prove the point that you cannot rely solely on any PPC program.



Free eBook Download



As an added extra to this lesson, I also have a free eBook download for you – Brad Callen’s

“Adwords Made Easy”. If this lesson has left you feeling confused, or if you want to learn how

to really harness the power of Google Adwords, download this eBook – it’s completely free:

In the next chapter, we look at analytics – the art of refining and tweaking your website to get

maximum results and conversions.



http://www.edmicah.com/seopro/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/AWMadeEasy.pdf



In the next lesson, we look at analytics – the art of refining and tweaking your website to get

maximum results and conversions.









[33]

Chapter 9: Google Analytics

To date, everything that I have shown you as been about getting visitors to your website, be it

via SEO or PPC, or any other method. If you have done the necessary work, you will start

enjoying increased visitor traffic to your website in due course.



The next step of course, is to analyze this traffic so as to be able to begin tweaking the website

itself. By analyzing, I mean looking at where your visitors are coming from, what they’re

looking at on your site, how long they’re there for and so forth.



NB: Analytics is an essential element of online success and should not be

underestimated!



There are many ways to track and analyze your website statistics, but by far the easiest and

most dynamic tool I have found on the internet is Google Analytics – the best part being that it

is free! First you‘ll need to sign up for Google Analytics by visiting:



http://www.google.com/analytics/









Above: The Google Analytics Home Page



If you already have a Google account (such as Gmail, Adwords, etc), you can login using those

details. Next, you will need to add your website or websites to the system. In order for Google

Analytics to “track” your website, you will need to edit the HTML code of the pages you want

tracked. If you have the know-how to do this, go ahead – if not, simply give the instructions

and code to your website designer to do. Remember you must upload this code to every page

you want to track, not just the home page. This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.



Once the tracking code is uploaded, you’re ready to go! Analytics will begin tracking data

within a day or two – no further effort required from your side. I suggest that you leave this for

at least a few days (ideally a week or month) to get a good average data report. Day to day

reports can be very deceiving and encourage unnecessary action on your part.









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Once you’ve given Analytics a chance to track a decent time period, you will have some very

valuable data at your fingertips. Login to your account dashboard and you will be greeted by a

page that looks something like this:









Above: A Sample Google Analytics Account Snapshot



Note – If you have a few websites on Analytics, your welcome screen will look different to the

above image. Simply select the relevant website to get to this dashboard.



The first element to take note of is the time period (top right-hand corner) – all of your

statistics will be based on that time period. So make sure you’ve set it to the correct period or

you could be in for a surprise! From the dashboard, you can assess the following information:



 Visits – This figure is the number of visits to your website by real people (as opposed

to robots and crawlers, etc). This is much more accurate than the figure that your

website host (ISP) will give you, as these are usually “hits”. Hits are not the same as

actual visits and can be very deceiving.

 Pageviews – This is the total number of pages that have been viewed over the given

period. The more pageviews, the more value your visitors are finding in your website,

as it means that they are browsing around (similar to browsing around a store, vs

walking in and walking out!)

 Pages/Visit – This is the average pages viewed per visit, calculated using the “Pageview”

figure divided by the Visits “figure”. The greater this number, the better. Again, this

shows you how many people are browsing.

 Bounce Rate – This figure represents the number of visitors who visit one page on your

website, and then leave. This figure can be very powerful in assessing the value of the

content on your website. If visitors do not find what exactly they’re looking for, they

leave. Testing and tweaking different content is a great way to alter your bounce rate,

but don’t become overly obsessed about this figure (as many do). Google Analytics

specialist, Avinash Kaushik has stated: “It is really hard to get a bounce rate under 20%,

anything over 35% is cause for concern, 50% (above) is worrying. ” Try keeping your bounce

rate within these parameters and you’ll be fine.

 Remember – if your website is using an opt-in form (AWeber, Constant Contact, etc) for

newsletter signups or similar, your bounce rate will naturally be very high, as people





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who opt-in are automatically “bounced” off the page to another page (thank you page,

etc).

 Avg. Time on Site – This figure gives you an indication of the average amount of time

that each visitor spends on your website. The longer they spend the better. An easy

way to increase this figure is by using video on your website. A 3 minute long video will

certainly encourage visitors to stay on a page longer than if there was only text which

they could skim through.



Lower down on the dashboard page, you will also find some powerful information pertaining

your website:



 Visitors Overview Graph – This graph gives you a good indication of the flow of traffic to

your website and allows you to assess your “busy” and “slow” times of the day, week

and month. The sharp dips in the above sample indicate weekends, where traffic was

pretty much non-existent.

 Map Overlay – This map is particularly handy if you run a website which targets an

international audience, or if your business targets clients from other countries. You

may use this information to invest in PPC or offline advertising methods to better

target areas with profit potential. Google is becoming more and more geographically

intelligent, and can even tell you what city your visitors are from. You will be surprised

to see where your visitors are coming from!

 Traffic Sources Overview – This pie chart is an invaluable weapon in your SEO arsenal as

it gives you the lowdown on exactly where your traffic is coming from. You may be

surprised at what you find here. By clicking the “view report” link, you can find out

exactly which sites are sending traffic your way. Use this chart to find potential

referrers that could be capitalized on. For example, if you find that you are getting a

lot of good, targeted traffic from a specific website, consider purchasing a banner

advert on that site for a month and assessing the results thereof.

 Content Overview - Here you can see which pages on your website are most popular.

Please note that only the pages with the tracking code installed are displayed here –

and all other pages are combined as one results (displayed as “/” at the top). Focuses

on the pages that are receiving the most traffic so that you can get increase your

conversion rate using the most powerful pages.



These basic tools can assist you greatly in increasing the effeciency and profitability of your

website. Don’t forget to explore the host of other statistics and tools on the left-side bar which

includes:



 Intelligence

 Visitors

 Traffic Sources

 Content



Anyone that is involved or has been involved in business will agree that one of the components

of success is constant analysis, review and improvement. Your website is no different – there

are always things that can be improved on. Start with Google Analytics to get the basics right

and then tweak your way to success!



In your next and final chapter, we look at Viral Marketing on the internet and how you can use

it to increase your website traffic exponentially. The internet has the greatest potential for

viral marketing success (consider Facebook, Twitter and Youtube).



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Chapter 10: Viral Marketing

This being a SEO course, you may be wondering – “What does viral marketing have to do with

SEO?” Well, we could argue around that point all day, but the reality is that viral marketing can

in fact act as a fantastic SEO tool in the following way:



 You create and provide something free (be it an article, eBook, or piece of software)

that gets the online community talking about it (be it on their blogs, forums, Facebook,

Twitter, etc)

 Most people that talk about it link back to your website

 More backlinks = increased search engine rankings = more traffic (isn’t that the

purpose of SEO after all?)



The above example is an ideal-case scenario, but not everyone has the ability (or time) to

create something so unique, outrageous or buzz-worthy that it can get the whole world talking

about it. There are however many methods for creating small-scale viral “buzz” using the

internet, that can ultimately drive traffic to your website. Remember, viral marketing is

generally either low or no-cost, so any results are generally worth the effort. Here are some

powerful viral marketing tools that you can incorporate into your arsenal:



Viral Tool #1 – Email Newsletters



Build up an opt-in email list and send a weekly, biweekly or monthly newsletter with useful

content. The keyword here is “useful content” – no-one is interested in reading about which

employees had their birthday this month, or that you’ve just bought new office stationery.









Above: Typical Industry Email Newsletters



Use your newsletter to provide informative and useful information, such as “How to XYZ” or

“What to do when XYZ happens”. If the reader finds this information useful, there’s a good

chance they will forward it on to other prospects, which will then also visit your site and join

your mailing list. Your email list of prospects then grows virally with little effort on your part.

These sorts of info nuggets also establish you as an expert in your field.



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Freebies, competitions and giveaways are always popular newsletter tactics. Always design

your newsletters with the reader in mind – think along the lines of “why should they bother

reading my email when they have a million other things to do today”. This will get you into the

mind-set of the email marketer…



Please note that, by law, every email sent to your list needs to have an “unsubscribe”

link or method by which the user can unsubscribe from the list. It is illegal to send

any sort of bulk email without this feature.



There are two ways two create and manage an effective email list or database:



1. Offline – This means using your email program (Outlook, etc) to email your list. This is

however very inefficient and unreliable. You will also use a lot of internet bandwidth in

the process and end up getting blacklisted as a spammer in most cases (due to the

difficulty of unsubscribing). You will also end up annoying your database (which is

most likely your customer base – not good!).

2. Online – This entails using an online bulk emailing service (such as AWeber, see below).

These companies will host your database, manage the unsubscribes (as required by

law), and send your email newsletters on time, every time. I highly recommend going

this route as it is the only viable option in the long run and portrays a much more

professional image.



$1 AWeber Test Drive - The kind folks at AWeber have provided a $1 test drive of their system for

anyone who’s interested for 30 day! I highly recommend giving it a go – it’s definitely worth the money and

there’s no risk. For more info, click here…





Viral Tool #2 – Articles



We discussed the power of article marketing in Chapter #4 – Off-Site Optimization, but this

was mainly for the purpose of creating backlinks. Another way that articles can be used is as

viral tools. Articles that provide useful information are bound to be syndicated (spread across

the internet). In the same way you write content for your newsletters, write articles that

people will find useful, talk about and share with each other. “How-To’s” and “101’s” are

always winners in article marketing. You can of course use the same articles you have used in

your newsletters.



Remember to always include a captivating bio at the end of your article (often called a

“resource box”) which leads people to your website. You may wish to include a comment along

the lines of:



“Feel free to publish or share this article wherever you wish, but please keep the bio/resource link included.”



This will encourage people to spread the article via email, or webmasters and bloggers to post

it on their site/s (without fear of copyright infringement. In my experience, the two fastest

ways to get your article syndicated across the internet are:



 SubmitYourArticle – If there is only one tool that I recommend for link building,

SubmitYourArticle would be it. SYA automatically submits your article to all the major

article directories (including EzineArticles, GoArticles, IdeaMarketers, etc) as well as a

powerful blog network of publishers. For every directory that accepts your article, as

well as every blog, you gain two powerful backlinks. For more information, click here.



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 SEOLinkVine – SLV submits your article to a huge network of blogs (I mean HUGE!) and

ensures that they are released in a natural fashion, so as to grow backlinks gradually

over time. The system works incredibly well. For more information, click here.









Above: Example of Quality Articles Spread Virally





Viral Tool #3 – Podcasts



Podcasts are recorded audio interviews or one-man recordings that offer valuable advice and

information on a particular topic (usually in MP3 format). The idea of recording a podcast may

sound both expensive and daunting, but it really isn’t.



Most podcasts are recorded using a built-in laptop microphone and Windows sound recorder,

or a Skype headset. The whole idea behind a podcast is that it is a basic, down-to-earth

recording with great information. It is not a flashy infomercial with cool effects and sounds.

The idea is that people will listen to the podcast, enjoy the content and then forward it on to a

friend. Every person that listens to the podcast comes to view you as an expert in your field

and will most likely visit your website or contacts you directly.



You might be wondering, “But what am I going to speak about?” – That’s the best part – if

you’ve already written articles, you can just do a podcast based on that topic. If not, “How-To’s”

and “101’s” are once again first prize topics to do a podcast about. Here are some tips to

remember when recording a podcast:



 Keep it as casual and informal as possible. A formal podcast will sound like a sales pitch.

You want people to feel like they’ve come to know you personally by the time they’re

finished with the podcast, so don’t be afraid to crack a joke or be naturally humorous

in the podcast.

 Try to provide as much useful and actionable information as possible in the podcast.

Providing resources and links to handy sites and service providers is always nice.

 Don’t try selling yourself during the podcast. This ruins the entire podcast and

eliminates your “unbiased and independent” portrait as a “guru”. Refer to your







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website at the end of the podcast for more information on the topic. This is enough to

get traffic coming through.

 Ensure that your podcast is at least 15 minutes long. People don’t want to go through

the hassle of downloading the file, only to find that its 2 minutes long. Podcasts can be

anywhere between 15 – 90 minutes long. Don’t be shy!

 Keep your actual file size small – your podcast doesn’t need to be 320kbps Studio

quality – try compress it to the lowest possible MP3 or WMA quality to make the

download fast.



For more information on how to make a podcast, visit http://www.digitaltrends.com/how-

to/how-to-make-a-podcast/.









Above: Example of Typical Podcasting Equipment



And that wraps up your 10-part SEOPro Course from me, Ed Micah. I truly hope you have had

an enjoyable and educational experience along the way. Please feel free to contact me with

any questions, requests or suggestions you may have.



Remember – keep your SEO efforts consistent and quality content based and you’re

sure to enjoy the fruits of your labor…



If you’ve decided that taking on the SEO task yourself is simply not worth your time, or too

complicated, please do yourself a favour and have a look at these guys – their service is top

notch and risk free.



To Your Success,



Ed Micah









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